Moe Lane

Via Instapundit, Warlord Rep. John Carter of Mars Texas (R, TX-31) is merrily causing trouble with an untroubled brow and a light heart:

Carter tries to push Rangel out

Republican Rep. John R. Carter of Texas offered legislation Wednesday that would require Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel to relinquish his gavel until the ethics committee completes an investigation into Rangel’s finances.

Under the rules of the House, members must consider Carter’s resolution by next Tuesday, forcing Democrats to confront Rangel’s ethics in the same week they will try to move the massive economic stimulus and a handful of late appropriations bills.

…which is, of course, the last thing that the Democrats want to do, given that it’s going to be kind of hard to explain why Rangel has quite so many rent-controlled apartments, was so behind on his taxes, and generally appears to be giving an excellent impression of a corrupt suckweasel. So now they’re actually going to have to do something about it, even if “something” is a whitewash. Which is the most likely result: if Congressional Democrats actually cared about corruption, they wouldn’t have quite so much of it in their caucus right now.

Still, Sunlight really is the best disinfectant. Well played, Warlord Carter. Well played.

Crossposted at RedState.

…just as you’re getting out of the car, and you can’t get it out of your head afterward?

More accurately, don’t you hate it when a song comes on the radio just as I’m getting out of the car, and I can’t get it out of my head afterward?

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You know: Shepard Fairey, who took time out from cosplaying a graphic artist for Minitruth and plagiarizing everything that moved to trace out the iconic image of our new President.

Oh, well, it’s America, so it’s not like we really know what to do with irony, anyway. Might as well just shoot in the head and leave it dead in a ditch somewhere; seems more honest, really. Anyway, the AP finally noticed that they got ripped off. Amusingly, they did not see this as merely the logical extension of their already-quite-obvious policy for 2008 (i.e., getting Barack Obama elected any which way that they could that didn’t involve actual weapons), and thus a humorous quirk of the election. We just shot irony, remember? There was a loud explosion and everything.

No, they lawyered up instead.

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A gracious and kind soul has purchased Mad Men – Season One for me off of my wish list; and I encourage said kind soul to leave a comment, so that I may find out if there’s any particular reason why I may not offer my thanks by name.

Hey, some people like to be anonymous benefactors. Then again, I’m not exactly the March of Dimes or the Salvation Army, either…

[UPDATE]: I offer the traditional welcome to our Instapundit visitors – geekery on the main page, feel free to peruse – and cheerfully note to Dan Riehl that the woman did say it twice.  I’m only human.

My RS colleague Jeff Emanuel reported on this little oopsie by Speaker Pelosi:

The title of the YouTube was “Dumber than Soap,” which Glenn Reynolds was gentlemanly enough to discount. Alas, Jeff did some more digging, and it turns out that this wasn’t the first time:

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I was going to rip into Rep Steve King (R, IA-05) for tossing out a 9 minute YouTube of RFK Jrs’ testimony where he stated that hog farmers were a greater threat than Osama bin Laden. It’s great that Rep. King has a channel, but 9 minutes?

Then I watched it.

My God.

My God.

If you ever thought that having this lunatic running the EPA was a good idea, do the Republic a favor and burn your voter registration card before you do any real damage with it.

Crossposted at RedState.

…looks like:

I’d say who sent that to me, except that I’m not really sure that they actually want to take credit for that. I mean, don’t get me wrong: Lego Star Wars is a great video game; just… not worth keeping around as a body decoration for, well, the rest of your life.

Bill Alliston asks the question: Ethics Panel to Clear Rangel?

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel predicted, on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program that aired Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009, that his multitude of ethics woes would soon disappear. “I think that next Tuesday you will see a break in this and as soon as the Ethics Committee organizes they ought to be able to dismiss this,” National Journal’s CongressDaily quoted the Rangel as saying.

If so, it’s hard to imagine that the Select Committee on Ethics will have devoted anything more than a cursory glance at the various issues raised. Consider just one aspect, for which documents are in the public record: Rangel’s financial disclosure forms. We took a look at his filings going all the way back to 1978, the first year members were required to disclose information on their personal finances, and found 28 instances in which he failed to report acquiring, owning or disposing of assets. Assets worth between $239,026 and $831,000 appear or disappear with no disclosure of when they were acquired, how long they were held, or when they were sold, as the operative House rules at the time required.

Read the whole thing, of course. More backup here – and there’s been more since then, of course; of which this is merely one example. And yet, he’s plainly quietly confident… and Speaker Pelosi is just plain quiet. So why is that, anyway?

Mind you, I already know, and I’ll be saying “I told you so” when House Democrats “clear” Rangel.

Unless you’re one of these people – which is to say, probably not an American – who know what the trophies represented, of course. Doesn’t matter: it’s still pretty cutting.

Via Jules Crittenden.

Now that we’ve had a couple of weeks? Or should I just increase the number of posts visible on the front page?

“Deputy HUD Secretary testifies in election fraud case” makes for a much sexier headline than “County executive testifies in election fraud case.”

And before people start arguing that the Master loves us, and would never betray us that this is a nonsense lawsuit, please note that as King County Executive Ron Sims is already directly responsible for “blatant violations of the state Public Records Act” – so blatant, in fact, that the courts keep sending the case back in order to keep upping the fines.  So it’s not as if Stefan’s own case (which is likewise based around FOIA requests, and the allegation that Sims had delayed fulfilling them in order to help the Democrats win the 2004 Gregoire/Rossi race) is exactly sui generis, is it?

Ed Morrissey doesn’t ask the question, so I will: what was Obama’s vetting team doing for the last few months?  Playing World of Warcraft? I understand that Wrath of the Lich King came out at what would have been the worst possible moment for their job productivity.

Crossposted at RedState

Probably not, but maybe some day the progressives will find their spines again.

Glenn Thrush has a statement from CBC Chair Rep. Barbara Lee that certainly sounds like they’re reserving the option:

“In this light, Sen. Gregg’s record of previously voting to abolish the Commerce Department and his attempts to block President Bill Clinton’s efforts to secure adequate funding for the 2000 census raise troubling concerns regarding his commitment to the department’s core missions.

We may know more when they get around to putting the press release on their own site. (more…)